ramblings, crafts and life by L

Blogcademy, birthday lists and new friends ❤

I was lucky enough to attend the Blogcademy in Brisbane on the weekend and had an absolute blast! Such a great way to start my birthday month. In celebration of new friendships and a new chapter in my bloggy life, I decided I’m going to be blogging more regularly ! I met the inspirational Katie on the first day of the workshop and we hit it off!

This Sunday I leave my early twenties behind officially and begin my ‘mid-twenties’. After reading Katie’s blog I was inspired to do my own list of things to complete in a year before my next birthday. You can read Katie’s blog and her amazing adventures here

I was born in the second last month of ‘the eighties’ (hint hint- my birthday coming up!).

My childhood clothes in the nineties consisted of Mini Minors, Osh Kosh B’gosh and hand-me-downs- usually from children my age (I was a small child!) and occasionally my brother and I would model these clothes at fashion parades (why Mum, whyyyy).

Yesterday on a lazy Sunday we went out to one of Libby’s sites she works for, half an hour out of the city to give out free petrol vouchers! I came with her for moral support and the bribe of a salad roll (her shout). Lib pointed out that I looked like I stepped out of the nineties- dirty driving glasses from Lib’s glovebox, Cue Australia vintage neon top, kmart leggings with holes in the bum, jelly sandals and lovely hairy legs. It was like I was six years old again, complete with food on my pants!

It was a great photographic moment waiting for customers in the sun!

Jelly Bean sandals

It was hot and lovely and we were watching ’25 biggest divas on the screens outside’. ‘Caught out there’ by Kelis came on and I am kicking myself so much for not listening to it more when I was massively down about being dumped. Gosh! What a kickass song.

I promised some frock-related posts this month, and they’re on their way!

First up is my favourite dress, my yellow shift dress. It’s a vintage Sandra Terry Australian made one, bought off my darling friend Anna! Shift dresses were first made popular in the 1960s, when clothing manufacturing became cheaper and skirt lengths became shorter. Shift dresses are no fuss and super flattering 🙂

Biba Fashion House: When I was in London I visited Brighton when they were having the Biba retrospective exhibition on at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Although I couldn’t afford to go in, there was amazing retro memorabilia of the fashion house for sale, and I bought my sister a compact mirror from there (ah, museum shops are always so good!).

Mary Quant was another fashion pioneer who made shift dresses popular.

Mary Quant Mini-skirt

Mary Quant 1960s

I remember looking at photos of Jean Shrimpton in high school (when I was fascinated by retro fashion) and thinking she was the most beautiful person in the world. And brave for going to the Melbourne Cup without a hat, gloves and rocking a mini-skirt. How fab!

Jean Shrimpton with shocked onlookers!

And what would a post about 1960s fashion be without photos of Twiggy ?

For the rest of October I’m raising money to donate to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. You can donate here to my campaign as part of Frocktober. Thank you in advance. xo

Last year I wore a dress every day for a month but I just don’t feel like I could do it again this year, it was really hard when I’m such a jeans kinda gal! Also, most of my dresses are a little ‘out there’- and when you work with children its not really practical to wear a dress all the time. 🙂

Hula Girl Dress

IN Aus, one woman dies every ten hours from ovarian cancer. This is such a horrible statistic! I want to do my part to help research early detection for the women I love and cherish. There is a 90% survival rate when the disease is detected and treated early, but a pap smear does not detect ovarian cancer.

My plan is to raise 500 dollars for research into early detection and prevention of ovarian cancer through organising a Friday Frocktail party on the 25th of October and posting regularly about dresses on here! I’m going to be blogging about sentimental dresses and the stories behind them, as well as posting dresses I do wear throughout the month.

If you would like to donate to my campaign click here. My gorgeous friend Holly is also doing the campaign, so if you were thinking of giving me ten dollars I would really appreciate it if you would do a fiftyfifty donation (ie $5 to me and $5 to her)- remember all the money raised goes to OCRF !

Having the flu seemed to bring out my creative side. With the weather warming up and being relatively stuck inside due to needing copius amounts of sleep+tea+ginger+honey+lemon+and tissues I kind of went a bit crazy. It’s strange spending so much time alone without talking to anyone or doing anything without people because everyone was at work or at university like proper adults.

I decided I don’t like being sick, but it was probably my body’s way of telling me to slow down. And while I’ve completely lost my voice and my breathing is still horribly wraspy, I think I’m on the mend!

Enough rambling. Here is what I made to combat the crazys and I am incredibly

proud of my ability to (sort-of) successfully use my sewing machine.

First up was sewing on some sweet black bobbly bunting onto the front.

Now this was so much harder than it looks! It was at the seam where the two pieces of denim joined. And being only a total newbie to the whole sewing thing, I only had really thick blunt tapestry needles. Anyway, I discovered the use of thimbles. Never again will I silently say to myself they are ridiculously small and probably pointless.

I decided to use my new patch from Laurence & Luna to upcycle a vest I bought (and still haven’t paid Lib for-soz Lib).

Hot pink thread! So fun. The purple floral is part of a sheet I cut up. It’s my favourite!

I have two pillowcases in the same fabric I’m NOT cutting up but will use on my bed.

Pretty for spring don’t you think?

Picture by mumsy! Dad’s new Triumph 4a is to the left of me, we went to Baskerville Racecourse to see the historic cars racing 🙂

The vest in action!

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BettyMag Update:

Selling preorders here of issue 3! I’ve been preparing all the envelopes so that they can be sent out straight away after I pick them up from the printers! My new ‘get excited’ stamp from Elise Blaha arrived in the mail and I’ve been busily stamping away and getting excited! xxx

Last Friday night was a meet and greet at the Art School with organisations working with women around Hobart to meet with university students. I represented BettyMag but my boss was there too speaking about our work. It was a lovely night, although I’m pretty sure I was fairly drunk!

I got to meet some amazing women who I had only conversed with online so it was pretty exciting putting (3d,physical faces) to names!

The Tuesday the week before was WO MO #6.

WO MO (women’s movement) is run by the fabulous Ange Wilson and is always so much fun! It’s basically a space for women to get together and meet up, share a drink together and some nibblies and discuss feminist stuff!

At WO MO: me, Briony Kidd, Ange Wilson (organiser) and Madeline Chung

READING:

I started reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte a few nights ago, and I love it so far!

My copy was bought by my dad on the 21/4/1984 in Haworth, Leeds. Haworth is the village where the Bronte sisters and their family lived. It’s a village in Yorkshire, where my UK family is from on my fathers side. Dad always writes inscriptions on the first page of his book with his funky signature, date and place he bought his book. I try and make sure I do this whenever I buy new books too.

MUSIC:

Now that Holly is back from her overseas travelling we can have jams again! I’m really looking forward to collaborating with her, she’s so great at guitar! And my bass playing has improved so much just from being around her! Woohoooo.